Medication dispensing cabinets have been developed in order to store and controllably dispense a variety of medications. A medication dispensing cabinet may include a cabinet body with one or more drawers that are slideably disposed within the cabinet body. The drawers store the various medications. While some of the drawers may be unlatched and freely openable, other drawers may be locked in order to more closely control access to the medications stored in the locked drawers.
Some medication dispensing cabinets are automated and, as such, include or are otherwise associated with a computer that controls access to the medication stored within the cabinet. The computer may allow access to only authorized users, such as medical providers who work in the unit in which the medication dispensing cabinet is located. Once authorized by the computer, a medical provider may identify a particular medication to be dispensed, such as by reference to the medications prescribed to a respective patient to whom the medical provider is attending. The computer may then unlock the respective drawer in which the particular medication is stored so as to provide access to the medication.
Even when unlocked, some drawers are controllably limited in the amount that the drawer may be slideably extended from the cabinet body. For example, a drawer may include a series of pockets or storage locations arranged in a linear fashion from the front to the rear of the cabinet. Each pocket may include a predefined quantity of medication, such as a single or unit dose of a medication. In an instance in which each pocket of a drawer is filled with medication, such as following restocking of the medication dispensing cabinet, a computer, in response to a request to dispense a unit dose of the medication, will unlock the drawer, but limit the extension of the drawer relative to the cabinet body such that a single pocket, that is, the pocket that is closest to the front of the cabinet, is exposed, while the other pockets remain within the cabinet body and are inaccessible. Once the medical provider has removed the medication from the first pocket, the drawer may be reinserted into the cabinet and locked.
Thereafter, in response to a request for another unit dose of the medicine, the computer may cause the drawer to be unlocked and may permit the drawer to be opened so that the first two pockets, that is, the two pockets closest to the front of the cabinet, are accessible, while the remainder of the pockets remain inaccessible within the cabinet. Even though two pockets are accessible, the medication has previously been removed from the first pocket such that the medical provider can only obtain the medication stored within the second pocket. The computer may maintain a record of the pockets that have been accessed within a respective drawer and/or the pockets in a drawer that still store medication. Based upon this information, the computer may not only unlock a drawer in response to a request for the medication, but may control the extent to which the drawer may be extended so as to permit access to only the prescribed dose of the medication, while continuing to prevent access to other pockets of the drawer that still also include the additional quantities of medication. By controlling the extent to which a drawer may be extended from a cabinet, an automated medication dispensing cabinet may maintain control over both the medication that is accessible and the quantity of the medication that is accessible.
In order to limit the extension of a drawer, at least some medication dispensing cabinets include electronically actuated drawers that require electrical wires or other cabling to extend lengthwise along the drawer, such as from the front face of the drawer towards a rear portion of the drawer. As a result of the relative movement of the drawer with respect to the cabinet, medication dispensing cabinets must be designed to ensure that the wiring or other cabling does not interfere with the movement of the drawer and, conversely, that the movement of the drawer does not impinge upon or otherwise damage the wiring or other cabling. As such, the wiring or other cabling associated with a drawer may increase the complexity of the design of the drawer as well as the overall cabinet.
In some instances, the limitation imposed upon the extension of a drawer could be overcome if a pulling force was applied to the drawer that was substantial and/or that was very soon after the drawer had been unlocked. In instances in which the limitation upon the extension of a drawer were overcome, the medical provider could have access to a larger quantity of the medication than was intended to be dispensed and a larger quantity of the medication than is required by the medical provider to satisfy the particular prescription that is being fulfilled.